How innovating has helped these 3 youngsters generate a turnover of Rs 1 crore in 8 months

Founded by three engineers, Mumbai-based Eventuate Innovations is designing products that make people’s life simpler. After a food-dispensing aquarium and self-watering planter, they are launching an energy and water-efficient cooler.

In a world where Alexa can order a cab for you and Siri can give you a weather update, can’t daily-use products around the home simplify your life? Eventuate Innovations works on that premise. Founded by in 2016, the Mumbai-based startup is the brainchild of three young engineers - Ritu Malhotra, 23; Prateek Malhotra, 26; and Pratik Harde, 27. The innovations it offers include an aquarium that can clean itself and feed your fish and a self-watering and fertilising planter.

(L-R) Pratik Harde, Prateek Malhotra and Ritu Malhotra

“The genesis of our idea originated in creating a simpler life for people. Before innovating, we usually survey people for their opinions. We asked whether they were happy with products available in market, like traditional aquariums and planters,” Pratik says. The responses gave the founding trio a clue to the direction they should take.

Currently a team of 22 people, Eventuate Innovations continues to research problems faced by people in their daily routine and work on sustainable inventions that reduce the impact of people on nature by saving water, electricity and forest wealth. The company owns a total of 14 patents as of now.

The beginning

The journey to innovate started a few years back when childhood friends Prateek and Pratik, then students of Class 12, decided to do something that could help society and India.

“Looking at the water crises faced by India we wondered how we could save water by using technology. We started a survey on wastage of water and researched where maximum amount of water is wasted across India,” Pratik says.

Years later, this survey led to the invention of its energy and water-efficient water cooler.

Ritu, keen to make a difference, asked Prateek, her cousin and an electronics engineer from Amity University if she could work with them. Ritu is a computer science engineer from NIT Nagpur, while Pratik Harde is an information technology engineer from Sinhagad College, Pune.

The team got together in 2013 and founded Eventuate Innovations in 2016.

Their top four products include an automatic digital aquarium, an automatic digital planter, spit pack (can convert spit to a biodegradable waste), and smart cooler (under the process of commercialising and to be available in the market from 2019). The products have been launched under Design It Ezy, a bootstrapped venture of Eventuate Innovations founded in October 2017 with an initial investment of Rs 2 lakh.

“Our vision is to make innovative, affordable, and accessible technology in India, and to build products that are safer and easier to use,” Ritu says.

USP: unique products

Automatic digital aquarium - The smart aquarium technology dispenses fish food automatically at a particular time and includes automatic tank cleaning technology (this can be scheduled as per a customer’s need). The digital aquarium can store fish food for 30 days, and comes with 24-30-hour power backup system. The aquarium is acrylic-based, light-weight, and easy to transport. Available only from the Design It Ezy website, prices of the fully automatic digital aquarium start at Rs 5,400. The semi-automatic aquarium is available from Rs 1,990.

Automatic digital planter - EzyGrow, launched in 2017, is a self-watering and fertilising planter in the vertical format. It has sensors that measure soil moisture; the technology constantly adjusts and refines the growing environment. The price for this automatic digital planter is Rs 600 per square feet; it comes with a one-year warranty and can keep plants watered for a period of up to two weeks. Apart from its website, the planter is also available on online retailers like Amazon.

Eventuate Innovation’s Digital Aquarium received the Innovation of the Year award from Hewlett Packardand Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Hewlett Packard introduced and promoted the company through newspaper and hoardings across India. This helped Design it Ezy generate a turnover of Rs 1 crore in eight months; it also has orders worth Rs 4.75 crore in hand.

Apart from the digital aquarium and planter, Design It Ezy has developed other water-based interior products like Ezy Hydro Fall, Ezy Hydro Fountain, Ezy Hydro Vortex etc. The two other products doing well are the Ezyspit and the Ezycooler.

EzySpit -Changing the habit of spitting is tough, and so the Eventuate Innovations team is trying to ensure that people use the EzySpit.

EzySpit packs

EzySpit is a spittoon that can be put in the pocket, and used in cars and offices by tobacco and paan consumers. It converts the spit into biodegradable waste in semi-solid form. Odourless, tamper-proof and spill-proof, it can absorb multiple spits and was developed over a period of six months.

An EzySpit Pouch costs Rs 5, an EzySpit container is priced at Rs10 and an EzySpit Bin is available for Rs 50, and will be available in retail stores. Created in April 2018, the company distributed 5,000 free EzySpit packs in Nagpur and Pune in the same year. Nagpur Railway Station also accepted EzySpit for the Swachh Bharat campaign.

EzySpit received Rs 5 crore in funding this year from BhartiaVenture.

EzyCooler - Who can do without a cooler in a hot country like India? The EzyCooler saves water and energy by consuming only 2 litres of water a day, and 50 percent lesser power than conventional coolers. With smart cooling technology that can be controlled by a smartphone app, the noiseless product is available in portable and wall-mounted models.

“When we did the EzyCooler demo in the market, we received three million views in three days. In two months, we have pre-bookings worth Rs 200 crore. We will launch our product in 2019 in the market,” says Pratik.

Ezycooler prices will start at Rs 12,000.

EzyCooler

The challenges

The first challenge was when the three founders discovered that no parts were available in the market to manufacture their products.The team overcame this challenge by designing and manufacturing each part of the product themselves, be it the food dispenser, circuits, automatic watering and fertilising system, cooling system etc.

With a plant in Nagpur, Eventuate Innovations earns revenue through its network of dealers and distributors across India who takes care of aspects such as transportation, sales etc. The company also sells its products through retail stores across the country.

The company’s future plans include “meeting the current demand from orders from around the world and continuing research for more innovative products”.